A Yes Bank officer roped in by Abubhav Mittal to siphon off money in 3,700 crore online scam arrested.
An official of a private bank who allegedly helped Anubhav Mittal - the mastermind of the 3,700 crore online Ponzi scam busted in Noida last week - siphon off money has been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police. Investigators suspect a chunk of the funds the company got from investors - around 3,000 crore - may have been transferred abroad and the Enforcement Department has been roped in to trace it. So far, the police have managed to trace only 524 crore - 480 crore of which had been in Canara Bank and another 44 crore in Yes Bank.
A 'Yes Bank' official, Atul Mishra, 30, is also suspected of involvement in illegal cash transactions in days after the notes ban, and leaking bank information. Sources say he also tipped off Anubhav Mittal's company - Ablaze Info Solutions - about the police inquiries against it.
"Atul Mishra is a business relationship manager of Yes Bank (in Ghaziabad's Raj Nagar). He allegedly helped Anubhav Mittal in making a bank draft of Rs 393 crore," said Bhagwan Swaroop, a senior police officer who heads the special investigation team. Mishra, he said, should have reported the transactions to regulatory bodies, but the banker kept them under the radar.
Investigators say since 2015, nearly 7 lakh people invested thousands from their savings in the company. The total amount may run to Rs 3,700 crore. The investors were given web links to click. They were told that the company earned Rs 6 for each click and passed on Rs 5 to them. The more they invested, the more links they got to click. People were also told that they would get a bonus if they got others to invest. The size of the bonus would depend on the investments they brought in.
But the police found the company did not earn anything from the web links - they were just a prop to reassure the investors.
The first sign of strains on the company's finances emerged in December, when many investors did not get their payments. It was around this time that many bank accounts were closed and opened in quick succession at Ghaziabad's Rajnagar. But instead of fresh earnings, money was just transferred between a series of his accounts - Axis Bank to Yes Bank to Kotak Mahindra and Canara Bank. In all, police say Mittal had ten bank accounts in Ghaziabad.
As investors started demanding refunds, Mr Mittal started operating companies in new names. In December, socialtrade.biz was migrated into new company, called freehub.com. Within 10 days, the site migrated into intmaart.com and then on Jan 27, 2017, intmaart.com was migrated into frenzzup.com.